To preserve his power, Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to match
people's mentality by reflecting society "warts and all". This is what
the leader of the Democratic Choice party, Valeriya Novodvorskaya, said in an
interview to Ekho Moskvy radio station, describing Putin's work as head of state
on the third anniversary of his inauguration.

"Putin would be different if our people were different,"
Novodvorskaya believes. "Putin has merely matched the image people wanted
to see. Hence the catchphrases about zapping them Chechen rebels in the latrines
and hence the restoration of the Soviet national anthem," she said.

Novodvorskaya believes that "Putin is just a mechanism for showing all
the ills and defects among the population". "Yeltsin did not allow
this to be too apparent, because at the beginning he did not want to accept how
bad people are: he was busy dishing out freedom by the handful and bringing down
walls between Russia and Europe. And when it was clear that people did not wish
to use all that, then the backtracking started: Yegor Gaydar was sacked from the
government and the 1994 Chechen war started," she said.

"Anyway, Yeltsin had personality: he was not prepared to mirror the
people. But Putin is keen to do that just to hold on to power".

Novodvorskaya is convinced that the present state policy is shaped by the
population's mentality. The war in Chechnya continues because "people want
to fight"; the move over to contract army service has not been successful
because "there are still people who agree to be drafted and serve in this
army"; the wages of teachers and medics are so low because they are
"ready to work for them".

"You have your neck, and you get a collar. Putin is the collar for this
stupid people with forever bowed necks ".